The PS of Pori, Finland, wanted to stop funding to Islamic cultural association

Two Perussuomalaiset (PS)* members of the City of Pori board failed to get enough support behind a motion to stop funding to an Islamic cultural association, reports YLE. The association gets 4,000 euros in funding from the city.

Migrant Tales not only read this story with some concern.

Apart from being Muslims, is there any other reason why the PS wants to cut off funding to the Islamic cultural association in Pori?

The motion, which would have cut funding to five other political and student associations as well, was defeated 9-2.

The two PS city board members who backed the motion are Laura Huhtasaari and Tommi Salokangas.

Migrant Tales tried to get in touch with Huhtasaari but she was unavailable for comment.

Salokangas said that he didn’t really understand what Huhtasaari’s aim was except to probably get some attention.

“I’ve visited the people of the [Islamic] association and there is nothing wrong with them,” he said. “You have to ask Huhtasaari about the her motives [for trying to stop the funding].”

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

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Why do you think it is wrong to cut funding of ideological associations by taxpayers money? I don’t like that the taxes which I have paid with hard work, are used to spread ideologies, like religions or the kind of politics I oppose, especially as some some of those ideologies show hatred towards me. I find that immoral to force people to first pay taxes and then use it to that kind of purposes, especially as we need the tax money for more essential services and the economic situation is already quite hard, which has caused all kind of cuts to quite essential services, like healthcare.

As far as I know, most associations fund themselves by collecting membership fees or some similar means. Why can’t these ideological associations do the same, instead of requiring taxpayers to fund them?

And why do you highlight the Islamic association, when the PS members opposed the funding of six ideological associations? The Islamic association was just one of those six ideological associations.

In Finland we have religious freedom and I highly doubt that the Islamic association in Pori is “spreading hatred” towards you.

The same argument you are using against Muslims could be used for Christians. What about Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen. She’s not very friendly towards gays and she’s a minister!

The PS, or specifically a politician like Laura Huhtasaari is eyeing the parliamentary elections of 2015 and wants attention. And it works. Jussi Halla-aho, Olli Immonen, Juho Eerola, Teuvo Hakkarainen, James Hirvisaari and others got elected on strong anti-immigration and anti-Islam message.

Why don’t we turn your question around and ask: Isn’t it immoral that politicians get elected for spreading hatred? It is and shows where our society has failed.

Precisely because of that, I think it is wrong to force non-believers to fund some religion they oppose. It isn’t honoring my religious freedom, if I have to fund a religion that I oppose instead of support.

I highly doubt that the Islamic association in Pori is “spreading hatred” towards you.

Maybe not personally towards me, as they probably don’t even know me, but let’s just say that Islam is not exactly known of positive attitudes against gays, if I put it mildly. I would be quite surprised if Islamic association would be one of the extremely few Islamic associations, which has non-negative attitudes towards gays.

In 2012, a gay friendly mosque opened in Paris in a secret location and they have received dead threats because of being tolerant towards gays. At the moment, I cannot remember any other gay friendly mosques. Do you know any and if you do, could you name some of them?

The same argument you are using against Muslims could be used for Christians.

Although on average, Christians aren’t as hostile towards gays as Muslims, I agree with your point. I oppose using tax payers money to be used for any religions, Christianity included. As soon as I was old enough, I resigned from the church, because I didn’t want to pay any money to fund it.

However, the church is mainly funded by the members of the church, instead of all taxpayers. Although a portion of corporate tax is given to church to maintain the graveyards which are used also by non-Christians. However, I oppose this kind of funding as well and think that maintenance of graveyards should be handled in a different manner.

Why don’t we turn your question around and ask: Isn’t it immoral that politicians get elected for spreading hatred? It is and shows where our society has failed.

Haven’t you heard about the paradox of tolerance? Like many philosophers have argued, it is quite permissive to be intolerant towards intolerance, in order to maintain tolerant society. I feel that the anti-Islam movement is a textbook example of this.

I just wonder what makes so many persons to be negative towards Perussuomalaiset, while at same time being silent about Islam, although the track record of Islam, is much more negative than the track record of Perussuomalaiset. For example, during the YLE Islam-ilta on TV, only the Perussuomalaiset there condemned the promoting execution of gays. A leftist politician even had the nerve to laugh during that hate speech towards gays.

However, I would like to point out that there are some positive exceptions towards gays among Muslims. Nimo Samatar, who is a Somalian-Finnish woman, whose blog I have advertised here before, was on the TV during Islam-ilta (and there she also became a friend of Olli Immonen of Perussuomalaiset, according to her own words). She afterwards condemned what the imam had said about gays and that she was shocked what the imam said about gays. I think she was quite brave, unlike non-PS politicians there, who didn’t condemn the killing of gays even after the TV show: